Personnel

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John C. Merkle
Director

John C. Merkle, professor in the department of theology at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, is the Jay Phillips Center’s director after serving for 13 years as one of its associate directors. Deeply involved in Christian-Jewish dialogue for more than three decades, he has been chair of the Christian Scholars Group on Christian-Jewish Relations, a national organization of Christian scholars engaged in the study of Judaism and of Christianity in relation to Judaism, and a co-editor of Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, the electronic journal of the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations. Along with dozens of published articles and reviews, he has written and edited four books, including Faith Transformed: Christian Encounters with Jews and Judaism (2003) and Approaching God: The Way of Abraham Joshua Heschel (2009), both published by Liturgical Press.
jmerkle@csbsju.edu

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Karen L. Schierman
Associate Director

Karen L. Schierman has been an associate director of the Jay Phillips Center since its beginning, and she worked for many yeas with the Center for Jewish-Christian Learning that preceded the current center. Among her many responsibilities at the center, she is especially involved in designing and facilitating interfaith programs for high school teachers and students.Karen serves on the boards of the Saint Paul Archdiocesan Commission on Ecumenism and Interreligious Affairs, the Saint Paul Area Council of Churches, and the Wisdom Ways Resource Center for Spirituality, and she is a former member of the executive and editorial boards of the Catholic Spirit Archdiocesan Newspaper. Long involved in Holocaust studies, Karen was on the National Planning Committee of the Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches and she is co-editor of its 1996 Proceedings.
klschierman@stthomas.edu

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Amy Eilberg
Interfaith Conversations Project Coordinator

Amy Eilberg has served as the coordinator of the Jay Phillips Center’s Interfaith Conversations Project since 2007, fostering interfaith learning and friendship among Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Twin Cities area. In 1985 she became the first women ordained as a rabbi in the Conservative Movement, and soon after that she found her vocation in the work of healing. A co-founder of the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center, where she directed the Jewish Hospice Care Program, and a founding co-director of the Yedidya Center for Jewish Spiritual Direction, she is nationally known as a leader of the Jewish healing movement and in the field of Jewish spiritual direction. Amy is also deeply engaged in the work of peace and reconciliation, particularly in connection with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, lecturing and writing on this topic as well as on the art of compassionate listening and on healing and spiritual direction.
rebamy@eilberg.com